Bart Ehrman has helped to popularize the urban legend that the early church arbitrarily voted certain books out of the canon. And that meme has been duly parroted by village atheism.
Now, there are Christian monographs that disprove this urban, but for now, let’s play along with the meme. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the NT apocrypha had just as much or more right to be in the NT canon as the books sanctioned by the church. What would that admission accomplish for the sake of atheism?
The NT apocrypha also contain miracles. The NT apocrypha depict Jesus as a divine or supernatural figure.
True, the NT apocrypha are sometimes heretical, but how is that relevant to atheism? What atheism finds fundamentally objectionable about Christianity is not Christian orthodoxy but Christian supernaturalism.
Ehrman touts the slogan that history is written by the winners. But suppose the losers won? Suppose the monophysites won.
Would Ehrman and his fellow infidels rest content if monophysite Christianity were the dominant Christology in Christendom? No.
Militant atheism is so consumed by its hatred of Christianity that it’s forgotten why it hates Christianity. The sheer hatred has become all-consuming. Hatred is all that now defines militant atheism.
And that’s illustrated by another phenomena. Why are Western atheists obsessed with Christianity? After all, Islam poses a far greater threat to what atheists value than Christianity. Most modern-day Christians have a live-and-let-live attitude towards infidels. As long as infidels don’t try to impose their values on the majority, Christian are quite tolerant. We don’t go around beheading infidels.
So why are Western atheists so obsessed with Christianity? Why don’t they shift their attention to Islam?
Because this is personal. Many of them are apostates. They left the church. They are bitter. Angry.
Put another way, their motivation is essentially emotional rather than intellectual or ethical. That’s why they single out Christianity. Not because that poses a greater tangible threat to them than Islam. But because they continue to find it psychologically threatening to them–the way some middle-aged men and women continue to rebel against their long-dead parents.
No - it's because this country is majority xian. It's what we freethinkers see and hear everyday and that is why. Put the victim card back in the deck Steve. In a marketplace of ideas you lose - so silencing dissent is your best option. The internet is here and that option isn't working so well anymore.
ReplyDelete"They're angry!" "They're bitter!" "Don't listen to their arguments because they aren't attacking islam".
A level playing field is what you fear the most.
Is Hollywood dominated by Christians? Are the Ivy Leagues dominated by Christians? Is the mainstream media dominated by Christians?
ReplyDeleteAtheists are highly successful in America. They often occupy the power elite.
David -- news flash the United States is not and never was majority Christian. Try reading Feser's The Last Superstition, if you are such a freethinker and deal with the arguments he raises how atheism, the new variety especially rests on certain things but reason is not one of them.
ReplyDeleteAtheists are opposed because in the words of one of your more thoughtful thinkers you need all of this to not be true. A very emotional need.
So it is very personal for many of the new atheists especially and guesss what -- that is fine. So stop cloaking yourselves in the mantle of rational thought, free of bias .... and all that other stuff you all tell yourselves.
ReplyDeleteawesome post!
ReplyDeleteDavid's comments are always such a hoot! I'm glad he takes the time to make at least one post on the contra-atheism articles here.
ReplyDeleteStatements like, "A level playing field is what you fear the most," always make me LOL. (:^D)
It's my view that the irrational hatred of the true God and His people as exemplified by anti-theists stems from the spiritual wickedness in fallen men which always and everywhere naturally rebels against the truth of the One true and living God and His self-revelation which is most clearly manifested in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, about Whom the theopneustos Scriptures (the 66 books of the Holy Bible) testify, and in Whom God's people live and move and have their being.
ReplyDeleteAnti-theists don't hate the false god or man-made religion of Islam because they innately know it's false, and it's hard to hate something that doesn't exist.
But they know the God of the Bible exists, and that He is righteous and just and holy and powerful and that they are naked and guilty before Him, and they hate Him for it.
They hate Him because He is God and they are not. They want to un-God God, but they can't so they do the next best thing, they attack His Word and His body on the earth, the church.
In Christ,
CD
David,
ReplyDeleteIt's my hope and prayer for you that you will someday trade in your irrational "free" thinking for rational "right" thinking.
Blessings in Christ,
Pilgrimsarbour
Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteNext, David is going to say that jolly-old-England "is majority xian"!
Has he any idea about demographics?
Some fascinating demographics on his ilk here-
http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/reports/NONES_08.pdf
Perhaps his ilk should actually pick on India. Which is 80% Hindu.
With a growth rate exceeding that of Christianity.
However not exceeding the growth of Islam, Baha'i, Sikhism or even Zoroastrianism.
But of course, those atheists are far too cowardly to stick their necks out on those other growing religions.
Because, as Steve says- they are more liable to loose their necks as a result.
And because it's the God that they actually know exists--- that they hate!
I think Steve is right that militant atheists really do hate Christianity, and some Christians too. But I think that David's first comment is almost correct to an extent. David is wrong that the majority of the country is Christian. But there are policies (i.e. laws, social norms) in place due, in part, to the influence of Christians imposing their standards. Some of these are annoying (e.g. I once moved from California to Michigan and tried to purchase beer before noon; no selling beer before noon on Sunday!). Some of them are considered offensive. And some of them affect people more in certain locations of the US than in other places. The South (at least my experience is limited to visiting Arkansas quite often) is full of Christian culture, significantly more than what I see in Southern California. The presentation of Christianity sometimes comes across in a bumpkin form, much like Jack Chick tracts do.
ReplyDeleteIn Richard Dawkins' video discussion with Alister McGrath, McGrath asks at the end of the discussion what explains the vitriolic language and attitude that comes across in Dawkins' works. Dawkins answered that what was so disgusting about Christianity was the way it manifested in Ireland, when someone would point to a child and say, "that's a Protestant child," or "that's a Catholic child", and the violence that is connected with the Catholic-Protestant divide there. I suspect that how Christianity is manifested in a culture, even if by "nominal Christians," is often a contributing cause to the hatred of Christianity.
James,
ReplyDeleteAs regards the Irish issue:
This survey finds a significant proportion of Irish (a third) filling the "non-religious" category.
With the majority of them being former Catholics.
And with the majority of them being Democrats in the Western states.
I wonder if David is Irish?
I wouldn't have thought what religious category Irish select today is relevant to Dawkins' experience in the late 1960s, or that being a Democrat was a relevant issue. But I see now that my point was that David might be Irish. Yes, that's it.
ReplyDeleteAnd y'know I wouldn't have thought that a giraffe having "an excessively long nerve"- would be justification for denying the existence of God either.
ReplyDeleteBut it works for Dawkins!
And y'know, I wouldn't have thought that "not being able to buy beer before noon on a Sunday"- would be justification for contempt for Christianity either.
But it seems to work for you!
You sure you're not Irish?
I once asked an Irish priest about that. He said "Catholic/Protestant" were simply used as socioeconomic labels in that conflict. There was nothing inherently religious in the usage.
ReplyDelete